


Storm

by WahlBuilder



Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, set Abundance on fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 21:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20973677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Dandolo has gone into the storm to find a caravan. Melvin is going through his own nightmare.





	Storm

**Author's Note:**

> It's been like, months, I'm sorry.

Throughout the years, Melvin has gotten used to losing those he loves. They were weapons, and weapons break, especially in the uncaring hands of Abundance. He would allow Mother Abundance to handle him as roughly as she wished—as long as her handling of his family was postponed.

He’s so afraid now. So afraid he can’t even think, his head filled with burning static. So afraid his knees are weak.

Dandolo has gone to look for a caravan that should have returned long time ago—if not for an unusual storm, the last of the season.

And Melvin is afraid.

Of Dandolo dying—but even more of Dandolo disappearing. Because Dandolo would: the storm rightfully feared by others and forbidden to them loves Dandolo and is loved by Dandolo. Because Dandolo walked into it, flew through it, into it so many times already—after his and Melvin’s fights, too—and returned unscathed. Because ‘when the time comes, when the call becomes stronger than the city’, Dandolo will disappear in it, walking through the Red Gates for the last time.

_Не уходи. Не бросай меня, не смей, я тебе не прощу._

His mind turns to the One who dwells in the heart of the Labyrinth.

_Let him go. You claimed him before I did, but he is mine, mine, mine, mine. Let him go. Or make his death quick and painless._

_Please._

_I beg you._

It’s been three hours. One hundred and eighty-one minute and counting, ten thousand eight hundred eighty-eight seconds. It is worse than the ‘hurry up and wait’ on the front lines. He exists between beats of his heart gripped in the clawed clutch of fear.

He tries to think of something else: the dancing fans he promised to paint for Dandolo, the investigation into the failings of generators at the new branch of the city, Niesha’s upcoming performance, the opening of a new _medeghi_…

Dandolo has gone out on a hoversail. Wakas are too heavy, he argued. And he couldn’t take companions, because he couldn’t worry about their safety in addition to seeking the caravan. Without any tools, because everything would be useless in such a storm; with only one oxygen tank, because more than one would be too much load. Dandolo would have to rely on his experience, his intuition, his body. His sandsinging. And one tank. It contains thirty minutes of lifegiving air—less if breathing is labored.

It has been three hours.

The storm is raging.

It is not one of the storms that the city welcomes with the Carnival: those are joyful, unbridled chaos, so much life—this one is angry, lashing out.

Is this Melvin’s punishment? He’s had Dandolo for long enough—and now Mars wants Dandolo back. Dandolo was never his truly—just borrowed for a while.

Melvin covers his eyes with a palm—he wishes he could hear anything but the howl of the storm and the silence of the city.

He is certain—has become certain at the strike of the one hundred and eighth minute—that the caravan Dandolo has left to guide out of the storm, will return safely to the city. But without Dandolo. He would trade himself for anyone in the city a thousand times over, would give out his life—and Melvin burns with resentment.

_Haven’t you taken enough of him? Why can’t you let him live, why must you make him carry your burdens all the time?_

He looks at the city, and hates—hate provides a shield against fear. He will be disgusted with himself later for such selfishness: he loves Noctis, it is his city, too; he loves the plains. They’ve given him so much. It is his home.

He’s just scared. He…

Melvin feels it—like a ripple in the air, a subtle change in the charge. Even the storm feels softer, grumbling rather than howling now. And from his vantage point three levels above the Grand Market, he sees people moving with urgency from one of the distant docks.

He breaks into a run.

***

He can hear Orion’s voice when he’s running up the ramp leading to the hospital—the voice, but not the words themselves, the accent too thick for him to get a grasp of it, and Orion’s voice breaks every now and then. No sounds of anything else breaking, though—or anything being thrown. But it doesn’t mean much.

He enters the _medeghi_ when Orion storms out. He worries Orion might trip on the ramp, but it seems the force of whatever emotions are gripping and blinding Orion can carry him safely all across the city, not only down the slight inclination.

The inside is cool and strangely empty of people. He would have expected a veritable crowd, but there are only nurses and doctors with weary faces, nodding to him wordlessly; he sees one smoking in quick pulls out on a small balcony. It appears that the main event is over, and hopefully for the best.

Or maybe it is only a start—it depends.

He has bad associations with hospitals.

He is pointed to a room—and when he enters, the most disconcerting thing is that there are no apparent major injuries on Dandolo. The whole scene is so ordinary: a neat small room is airy, various medical equipment is turned off and tucked into niches, a window faces the expanse of the city; a single doctor with tired eyes sits on a chair—and Dandolo is on the cot, propped on pillows, hands folded on his lap.

Oh, there are cuts on Dandolo, and he’s stripped to the undershirt; the cuts are covered with medigel, glistening with a slight blue tinge like melting frost—a cooling variety, then: of course, most of those minute injuries are not cuts, but abrasions from the sand.

Dandolo looks at him—and smiles wearily. ‘Melvin. I apologize for taking so long.’ And then he turns his heavy head to the window again, eyelids half-lowered, and Melvin’s heart shrivels in fear at the sight of Dandolo’s hands gripping each other. ‘Tell him, doctor, please.’

The doctor shifts on the chair. ‘The caravan—’

‘Is mostly fine, as I imagine,’ Melvin cuts them off. He knows he’s being rude, but the cold hand on his heart is squeezing kindness out drop by drop. He must apologize later, but now he needs facts, relevant facts—before he breaks.

The doctor starts again: ‘The Prince has sustained certain injuries that might result in— and note the word “might”, it’s not certain, but the chance is high enough—’

‘That I will go blind,’ Dandolo finishes evenly.

Melvin lowers himself on the end of the cot. He isn’t sure his legs can hold him. He isn’t sure he can hold back from barking orders—but he does try to control his tone: ‘How fast might it progress?’

The doctor sighs. ‘Difficult to say. Weeks. Seasons.’

‘What’s the chance of recovery?’

‘There is a high chance—if the blindness does indeed occur. But, again, difficult to say.’

Dandolo, still looking through the window, says in that even tone: ‘I will continue carrying the burdens of my duty, and the _medeghi_ will monitor the situation.’ Dandolo’s hands are clasped so tight that the recent abrasions split, and his face is gray.

To not see the plains anymore, or his city, or the face of his daughter—it will kill Dandolo. It’s not that sailing is impossible: there are plenty of caravaners with visual impairments, and Dandolo has his sandsinging senses, too.

It’s that the unpredictable patterns of it would make him a threat to a caravan—and Melvin has no doubt that Orion would rather lock or even smash all his precious ’sails than let Dandolo fly solo in such situation. Letting him out drunk, angry, sick—Orion can do that, he did (and not much can stop Dandolo anyway). Desperate, with his senses potentially leading him astray? Never. But Orion might as well murder Dandolo, as he threatens so many times in any given week.

Dandolo can’t live without flying. He can go on without it for long periods, even seasons—but to be denied it forever…

Melvin forces himself to get up, to swallow, to _not_ rub his chest where his heart won’t beat properly. ‘I will call for Niesha and… everyone else.’

Dandolo looks at him, finally, green eyes discolored, like an olive tree gripped by an unbeatable disease. ‘I want to look at _you_, Melvin.’

Somehow, Melvin didn’t think to include himself into the list of people Dandolo might miss looking at.

He leans—falls—to Dandolo, jostling the cot, presses their foreheads and noses together, sharing the living breath, and Dandolo’s hands fly up to his face. They smell sharply of medigel, and the fingers travel over his features as though Dandolo is preparing himself to memorize them with his touch.

Dandolo can do a lot by touch alone, Melvin knows: scale the canyon walls, check a ’sail before flying out, navigate the labyrinth of the Palace… Dandolo is very tactile, knows his things by texture before everything else.

Melvin kisses Dandolo’s palm, dry and warm. ‘I love you,’ he says, and means it with his heart, his entire broken being.

Dandolo smiles, tender, his eyes warmer, alive now. ‘I love you, too, my raven.’ His thumb brushes Melvin’s cheekbone. ‘I am just catastrophizing. We will be well. Nobody has died today, and the sandsails require only minimum repairs. The blindness might not occur at all, and even then, our medicine is advanced enough to help repair my vision. I’m here, and whole, and yours.’

Melvin wraps his arms around Dandolo. He doesn’t think he’d be able to let go of his husband for a while. ‘I was so scared I threatened the whole of Mars for you,’ he confesses, pressing his forehead to Dandolo’s shoulder.

‘The whole universe won’t stand between us,’ Dandolo murmurs, and it doesn’t sound like it is meant as a joke. It’s not even a promise—just a statement of fact.

The howling has died now, and the city is breathing again, filling with everyday clamor. A distant click, just on the lower edge of hearing, indicates that the main shields are being opened.

The season of storms is over.

**Author's Note:**

> I caved, with this reference. I'm that unsubtle.  
With love to my Martian fam and Spiders <3


End file.
